The Incredible Stories of Bodyguards Protecting the Famous and Wealthy | Real Stories

paper was light gold in medieval times [Music] i want tobacco sugar [Music] that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong [Music] [Applause] [Applause] bodyguards protection agents muscle whatever you want to call them these people are on the front lines for the rich famous and powerful not only do they see it all but they deal with it all the good the bad they're really [ __ ] bad and the ugly five stories five completely different worlds explore the lives of those at the top of the protection field seeing what it's truly like to guard society's elite showcasing the individuals who have protected the likes of world famous politician nelson mandela hip hop's royalty 50 cent little wayne one of america's most notorious gangsters whitey bulger american ambassadors under blackwater and global superstar justin bieber buckle up it's time to pull back the curtain on the inner workings of an industry that most people know nothing about [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to miami beach where we meet anton one of the most well-known and respected bodyguards in the business anton cut his chops protecting 50 cent in his prime where bulletproof vests were mandatory and fights were daily gaining respect by getting shot on the job with 50 anton has protected some of the biggest names in music after being on the front line for years anton started his own bodyguard company guardian protection our story looks at what it takes to go from beating people up every day to running one of the biggest bodyguard companies in the usa i did 50 cent for four years uh in 2005 i left to start guardian guardian's a full service security agency we do everything we do concerts and events we do night clubs we do personal bodyguard work that's probably what we're most well known for i partake that eve was my first client with guardian this year at the time was headlining the tours the screen tour i was a sierra for a couple years that led to t-pain i was with him for a couple years and that's when payne had i think he had 13 number ones in one year the year of t-pain little wayne timberland birdman dj khaled kerry hilson future gym class heroes what up it's travie mccoy from class heroes barbie's got my back all day what i mean son all the wild walls protecting all these people i was gaining other clients i gained little wayne so i became little wayne's bodyguard wayne's getting out of jail he was in rockers island so that was my first day on a job is the day that wayne got out uh his manager cortez said i'd like for you to be his head of security and i've been with him for about five or six years now so a mixture of me being in the clubs and me being on a road i was able to get other clients shawn mendes austin mahone felicia keys pharrell ariana grande the kardashians but as i get these clients i'd work them first and show them this is how guardian does it and then i'd go to my my pool of bouncers and josh ponder is my operations manager i said josh who's the next guy that you think would be a bodyguard oh this guy joe gable okay joe what's up we're going to treat you at a bodybuilder you want to be a bodyguard yeah let's do it there's how much it pays okay let's do it we're probably the biggest company in the states as far as protecting uh protecting the you know musicians and entertainers these guys each one of them i've hand-picked every bodyguard that i have right now lined up they were born to protect so i would build my pool of bouncers and i'd create bodyguards out of each one of them let's say i need to get this big i need to get this license you need to shoot this many times and you train this much and we have an alliance with american top team that we've been training with and they would train and we'd build them up and then i'd try them off with little artists local artists you know work with this guy here how did he do he did good okay now boom we put him with another artist before you know it now we've got 23 bodyguards right now around the world 24 7 around all those names i just mentioned my guys are living in their houses every day they're with them 24 hours a day 365 days a year around the world so a lot of these guys say that i bodyguard this and i bodyguard that they're all full of [ __ ] they bodyguard a client for one night in a nightclub and they say oh this guy's bodyguard no you walked into his table yeah anton was wild man i was like pumped up wrestlemania type [ __ ] with 50 confrontation was around at any corner you always expected it with g unit and 50 you know these guys are from jamaica queens new york where they live where they're from murder happens every day so they're already built like this so now i've gotta think like them and it's difficult because they said i'm not from the hood i'm not from there so being around them i started learning i started being like them 50 cent got shot nine times right before he blew the [ __ ] up in the music scene don't get it twisted 50 cent was a gangster dealing with daily violence and drama eventually led to a bullet entering the flesh of a young anton at extremely close range in the hotel it was us jay-z missy it was a tour so there was countless artists that was in this hotel so all i heard was yelling and screaming outside and then we ran to the front to check who who was yelling and screaming jay was the head of security at the time and jay goes you know anton go downstairs i think something's going on downstairs so sure enough i go out there there's a bunch of thugs all lined up all i hear is jib jab going back and forth and while i'm separating it things are quiet but then shot comes around my shoulder and cracks the main dude in the face so now everyone's fighting now there's no more talking so now i just do what i've always done fight you know i hear this one guy say you'll pop the trunk you know and i'm not from the hood but i know what that means right so then i started chasing the guy i'm not the fastest guy in the world and that guy was a [ __ ] cheetah and he was able to pop his trunk turn around and i just remember him looking at me like this and just shooting sideways i wasn't trying to be a hero or nothing it was just happening so fast that i just thought to myself get that guy just get him because he's gonna kill your crew so while he's shooting bang bang i'm still running after him and then finally boom i get hit in the leg still didn't register but we were all making fun of uh anton on the bus after after we found out he was cool because he actually ran into a shootout like a full-blown shootout people from our crew were allegedly from our cruise somebody from behind me would shoot back they kept shooting back and forth missy elliot's bus got shot up no one no one was in it missy elliott's toy bus was shot the [ __ ] up like it was like swiss cheese and missy is not is nowhere near gangster and she had nothing to do with it all she do is dance every night and freaking freaking freaky she's not really into like shootouts and beefs 50 comes walking in and he's like uh yo man you're okay yeah i'm right i'm all right we just got to get you out of here and then he's like i heard what you did man when you heal up you come back i was like all right boss you got it you know what getting shot is what it takes for them to know your name [Music] let's flash back to the year 2010. twitter was in its infancy instagram had not launched and a song called baby by justin bieber hit radio stations all over the world propelling the canadian teenager on a path to international stardom bieber became one of the world's biggest stars right at the time when the rise of social media was changing the climate of fame and the way fans could connect with their favorite artists everywhere the young star goes cameras follow at this point justin could be at the tip of the north pole and you can be damn sure there will be at least one girl waiting to take a selfie with him with this constant scrutiny and exposure a high quality bodyguard is imperative we met up with justin's director of security mikey at the beginning of beaver's global purpose tour in vancouver canada mikey is the epitome of the modern bodyguard mixing brain and brawn to not only keep justin safe but ensure the numerous moving parts of the world tour runs smoothly my name is mike yarana and i've been working for justin bieber for three and a half years now first time i needed security um i used this guy named kenny who was uh actually not really a real security guard he was actually just a boy of mine who's like large and we figured he could scare people off just because the way he looked but after a while i really needed legitimate security i think we started realizing security when thousands of people started showing up at radio stations it was a little overwhelming we kind of knew that we needed to step it up and then we went to australia and we told the australians at this sunrise tv show that we were going to need more security and they didn't believe us and then the kids rioted the streets being at the place where the crowds were starting to get bigger get into the place where i felt like my safety was at risk so you know it was about time that we started looking for people that were on that next level of protection i think mikey you can describe as loyal professional humble selfless is the best one i think that's the most important adjective when it comes to this job someone who's selfless who puts others above themselves at all times because they're making sacrifices every single day mikey is he's a leader and with being a security guard you need to be a leader you need to take control of situations and understand how to communicate and uh he's just the best at it i think what we look for in security is people who have more more of this and more of that you know you're not only protecting someone's you know body you're also protecting their heart their mindset and you need someone who can think fast on their feet because avoiding situations is more productive than handling the actual situation the hardest part of the job would be fighting complacency getting out of the routine mentality of or i'm just going to wake up i'm going to get in the car i'm going to go to the venue do meet and greet do the show just another day or okay let the fans get a little bit closer say hi to him and take a picture because like i said earlier nine times out of ten the day goes smooth you gotta keep like combative mind that something will happen not if but when you gotta keep that mentality the main threat i would say the unknown because nine times out of ten they're fans girls who just want to be with him and see him get close to him and talk with him take a picture that one time you never know what what may happen it's hard really to get used to it it's constantly changing life is constantly changing surroundings are constantly changing and having people that are consistent around all the time which being my security it just creates such a safe place for me and it's needed it's needed in this world it's needed for the world that i'm in you never get completely used to it because of the emotions you see so many people with different stories and the stories may be alike they'll always touch you in some type of way the way i think the security has evolved is by basically staying out of sight out of mind giving him more space as he grows letting him interact more with people as their fans have grown they're more likely to engage them in a conversation than to grab them and literally rip hip-hop apart because i remember when i first started with him it may sound crazy but three four little girls emotional they have so much strength that they'll literally rip his shirt take off his hoodie and if it's a big crowd you can lose them in the crowd i'd say the hardest part is just space and so having security it's it creates space for me it creates boundaries it creates uh just a safe place for me but as the fans have grown with him so has their approach to be able to just come up to him hey justin how are you and engage in conversation so give me more space for sure as the fans get older and more just knowing themselves more they start understanding how to act and they actually want to act a little bit more sane so that maybe they get my attention because at this point if you're screaming and super overwhelming it's hard for me to kind of connect with you the most memorable moments dealing with the crowds overseas especially in south america it gets so bad that you start thinking how am i gonna get out of this sometimes when there's large crowds and it's really uncontrollable because over time people see other people freaking out and then they start freaking out and then it becomes this whole thing where it just becomes uncontrollable the strength of people packed in one place they could be five foot one girls but about 150 of them they'll move you and three other big guys with no problem that gave me a lot of experience because you start learning or start thinking about crowd control before it even becomes an issue so you see one girl and you already addressed that one girl because you know that if you start putting the line then you start creating a system for them so you won't have to become an issue with the crowd afterwards when they're 100 of them yeah i would say me and justin our friends definitely developed a special relationship and he's always been good he's always been a friend he's always been someone who i can count on and that's important as well i think just because of the fact you know how i get to see him every day and and and respect what he goes through and vice versa he sees what i go through and has that respect towards me and yeah great relationship you know after a while you end up building relationships with the people that are around you every day even venue security you know you see them so much and you build a rapport with them i think that also could go with one of the hardest parts of the job to be able to maintain the client and friend relationship knowing when to step in as a mentor as a person who you you know grow emotions to and when to just shut up and be an employee i think you want someone that cares about you know the artist they prefer to remain professional because that's a true pro someone who can really put their ass on the line for somebody but at the same time knows how to walk that very you know gray area you know people get caught up in it sometimes and other times they're not caring enough and you know finding that nice mix of someone who really understands the person gives a [ __ ] but at the same time can stay professional when you find it you know [Music] [Applause] [Music] james whitey bulger one of the most notorious american criminals of all time whitey and his winter hill gang ran the streets of boston for decades bulger was a violent vicious gangster but it's not the murder extortion and narcotic sales that make weddy's story special no it's the fact that he was secretly an fbi informant for over two decades what's this got to do with our story well powerful criminals surround themselves with powerful associates whitey ran with a small inner circle too to be exact one of these allies was his partner stevie flemi another ruthless killer and fellow fbi informant the other was whitey's right-hand man bodyguard and enforcer kevin weeks kevin worked alongside whitey for over 25 years nobody was closer to him and nobody was more shocked and betrayed than what he was exposed as an fbi informant kevin's story is one of crime corruption violence betrayal and of course lots of death whitey bulger was probably the premier criminal in boston for almost 30 years in terms of describing bulger i think the adjectives of vicious and cold-blooded would apply highly intelligent amoral very very disciplined ruthless and that's something i'd want to be spending a lot of time with a clever uh and vicious criminal if you asked me years ago to describe whitey bulge i'd say he was a friend you know i really looked up to the guy menta he taught me a lot if you ask me today i would tell you i have mixed feelings because i consider them my best friend and then i found out that him and steve let me were informants for the fbi he he was one of these people that uh he led from the front uh he enjoyed when it came to violence and stuff he enjoyed it and he wouldn't ask you to do anything that he wouldn't do himself which was everything so when he asked us to do something myself yeah i didn't hesitate because i knew he would do it he was absolutely devoted to bulger he talked about him as being clever brilliant a master manipulator he talks about him as if he was flawless like he was a criminal god when i was 18 years old out of school i started working clubs bouncing and i worked st patrick's day there and i had a few fights and i ended up getting hired and that's when i met jim bulger and steve fleming they used to frequent the bar eventually he gets picked up as a bouncer at a bucket of blood called triple h triple o's happens to be where whitey bulger conducted business upstairs he never wanted to be called upstairs by wardy bulger takes him on as a lieutenant he's beef whether he's a bodyguard in the conventional sense or not is one thing he's beef and muscle he's there he is there for the worst of it he's an eyewitness to some of the most gruesome murders you can imagine [Music] as jim bulger i got along with great and i trusted him basically i kind of knew what he was thinking well there was a fellow brian hallowan and he was an associate of winter hill well he was involved in a shooting in chinatown where he killed this guy george pappas and he was grabbed by the fbi and he cooperated he made a deal with them and his deal was to give up whitey and stevie and other people for two different murders if hallerin had given up bulger as he was trying to do to the to the fbi then bulger was in trouble and bulger's empire was about to fall what he was looking for helen for a while and we finally received word that he was down the waterfront that he was at this restaurant he was called the pierre at the time weeks was sent out as the lookout they had a name for halloween they called him balloon head and so he was going to notify them he was posted across the bar and at the right time he was going to call bulger i was looking through the binoculars and i saw helen in the window and jim bulger was in the hit car with another fellow and i radioed to him when hal was getting up and then when helen came out into the air i let him know that he was out he got shot right over here and the car drifted across the street the driver was killed immediately and the hugh shot in the head and brian helen got out of the car he staggered towards the back and he got shot 21 times that was the first time i'd been involved in a murder with them there was double homicide when the murder took place it was first in my first murder it was kind of surreal it came to the realization too that this really does happen so i decided that time that i committed homicide i was involved with it there was no getting out and at that point i says well if i'm going to do this i'm going to be the best i can at it in north america the term bodyguard immediately invokes a vision of somebody protecting a musician an actor an athlete however executive protection is much much more than that enter the shadow and atlas tactical high risk targets 24 7 life or death possibilities welcome to an undisclosed location in florida where shamir bolivar owner of the shadow group combines skills with tyrone cornell owner and operator of atlas tactical a company that specializes in overseas diplomatic protection warzone protection is a whole other world of security operating in the most dangerous countries on the planet these guys have experience in situations where the enemy isn't some overzealous fan but a demented [ __ ] willing to die for a cause my name is tyrone cornell married 36 years old father of one i'm originally from cartagena colombia so i was born and raised there grew up really really poor no water no electricity you know no bathroom just really treating outside um in colombia i was going to military school in my later years so i always wanted to be in the military after the attacks on 9 11 decided that i needed to do something for this great country that has given me so much so i i joined the marine corps went to the recruiter sign up couple weeks later i was at paris island south carolina to our star boot camp my name is shamir bolvar 40 years old father of three originally from brooklyn new york grew up in the city i've protected and been associated with anything from former president george bush president obama donald trump lenny kravitz the wade family growing up in the city i was forced to kind of ride the line as a fine line between uh being on a good guy side of the bad guy's side i was just surrounded by a bunch of chaos [Music] i knew i was going to go to war i just didn't know how soon i was going to go to war my military specialty is so 311 which is infantry so i did that i deployed to iraq in 2003. you know uh we were in kuwait about a month before we crossed the land of departure into iraq every little city little town all the way from kuwait to baghdad which is a firefight dead bodies all over the place uh burning oil fields mango bodies uh this smell was pretty bad pretty much a lot of people full of bullet holes the dogs would eat the dead bodies all over the place we finally got to a camp in iraq the first day we got to that camp we took 43 more rounds so that was pretty scary at that point i hadn't seen any of my buddies get hurt but that would that would come pretty soon [Music] i lost a lot of friends half of my team was killed january 31st 2005. so um i went over there with a team of four only two of us came back just one of those things that it happened in war you know we're volunteers we were not made to go to war so we always have to understand you know the war is uh war is not pretty but you know it is what it is i started focusing on law enforcement as a career and i got into law enforcement after moving down here from um from new york i was in law enforcement approximately 15 years in law enforcement i was able to work several specialized units narcotics working undercover swat officer worked as an operator our work containment specialized operations where we took down narcotic organizations it was like my first venture into the miami vice life throughout dr time doing dignitary protection as a swat officer as a patrol officer presidential motorcade come through he'd help secret service i was like you know what some money in this this is a very profitable business i'm just on the wrong side of it we used to ride around back down with a humvee no doors no top it was just whatever on our second deployment they started putting ieds so most of our casualty came from um in provide explosive devices you know you're driving around all of a sudden you drive over a pressure plate and your vehicle blows up seeing the vehicle in front of you completely get turned into swiss cheese it was an experience uh you know i hope i never have to live it again my body has definitely taken a toll half of my left index finger is missing if you can see that both of my clavicles are two and a half centimeters shorter my bicep got detached from here and ended up down here it looked like i had an apple in there ieds overseas are definitely uh the biggest killer of us troops and contractors diplomatic protection in afghanistan during war is as dangerous as it gets tyrone came face to face with a life of death situation after his vehicle convoy spun out and crashed i got out and i went to assess the situation and i as i opened the back door so i saw a lady with a broken leg so i'm pulling her out you know a lot of people were gathering then after i saw somebody i felt somebody pulling my my gun so i looked took a peek back and i saw some dude just pretty much with his hand out for my pistol and that time i turn around i put two rounds on him pretty much run run above his stomach and another one on his chest one of those situations that you feel bad for the people but at the same time it's either them or us i have to come home to my family you know i got to do what i got to do to stay alive after i got out of the marine corps you know i honestly i didn't even know what i wanted to do i got a call from a company called blackwater not sure if you guys heard about it yep that blackwater the notorious security firm founded by auto manufacturing air and ex-navy man eric prince tasked with high-risk security detail in conflict areas blackwater became a household name in 2004 after four members were ambushed in fallujah by iraqi insurgents who fatally shot all four agents after the killing a mob let the bodies on fire and then drag the charred remains through the streets of iraq behind the vehicle beating them with sticks as they went finally the remains were hung from a bridge while men women and children cheered the chilling events sent shock waves through american news media significantly escalating the war in iraq blackwater received over 1.5 billion dollars worth of contracts during the iraq war from the u.s government but these contracts did not come without controversy between 2005 and 2007 blackwater was involved in 195 shooting incidents negative press became associated with blackwater's brash way of doing business peaking on september 16 2007 when the team opened firing a group of people at nesour square in baghdad killing 17 injuring 20. the blackwater guards explained that the group was ambushed and the shooting was an act of self-defense but the united states federal court decided otherwise sentencing three men to 30 years in jail and one man to life in prison you know we have a bad rap for some incidents that happen but i can tell you that blackwater is the only company and i'm doing security overseas that has a 100 percent record you know we have never lost a client ever but nobody talks about that when i was a blackwater i was in two teams i was in a team called tsc tactical support team if they couldn't make it back for themselves we had to go and get him the other teams i was in i was with the ambassador so whatever he went i went right next to him you know whatever the mission you know a lot of people think that contractor searches out to kill people well we're not we get paid to take care of whoever and bring him back safe we're not there to get into a firefight with somebody we're just there to have one person from point a to point b and then back to point a [Music] south africa a breathtakingly beautiful country filled with the tumultuous history for decades the nation lived in complete racial inequality led by the all-white apartheid government violence and bloodshed were rampant the country was drowning on the brink of civil war and in desperate need of change when change finally came a national hero was born nelson mandela arguably the most popular global politician of all time mandela devoted his entire life to fighting for equality and democracy in south africa including spending 27 years behind bars after narrowly avoiding a death sentence via hanging for treason following his 1994 inauguration as south africa's first elected president mandela immediately set out to change the fiber of the country mandela commenced the change first within his office merging the previous all-white presidential protection unit with his all-black anc presidential bodyguards this is where our story begins rory stein presidential team lead and long time fixture of the racially motivated apartheid police was forced to work alongside mandela's head bodyguard of four years jason tusaballala jason was a trained anc rebel who viciously fought the old all-white government and men just like rory stein what transpired helped build the foundation of an entire nation growing up in south africa when i was born in 1963 was completely different to what south africa is today apartheid it had 15 years to establish itself by the time i was born so when i was born everything was segregated i went to white's only schools only saw other white families and other white kids other than of course our domestic workers when they brought their children home we would play with these little black kids but when we came to school going age they would go to that school and we would go to that school i finished high school in 81 at that time it was mandatory for every white male leaving school to do two years of national service in the south african defence force as it was there which meant you had to go to the army and i really didn't want to go to the army if i could have avoided it so i had opted to go into the police force and if you fast forward that movie to 1990 when the then state president de clark announced that he was going to unban the anc release mr mandela unconditionally and all of that i was in the security branch well the special branch at that time it was like a gestapo basically the special bronze um was really tasked to keeping apartheid alive for lack of a better explanation because they would be considered the number one enemy would be highly unlikely to accommodate those people in your new government the most brutal unit that you can ever have at that time if you are arrested by the special branch you can disappear it was the hardcore side of of the apartheid police force we went to madiba and told him he said you know rory is one of the guys that was in the special branch and he was allegedly have been involved in bombing one of the hotel house he has been attached to us how can we work with this guy well having received my training in the police in particular in the special branch or the security branch we were trained in the ideology and the strategy of the anc i didn't buy into any of the stuff that he was saying when he was released from prison about south africa being for all our people both black and white and we want to build one country and all of that i have come out with one single objective and that is to help her to bring south africans together black and white the fact that nelson mandela gave people the opportunity to change i think that was very very much part of his characteristic and that he gave a person that opportunity and he was willing to take that risk in his most inner circle and to allow someone like rory stein to say you've got the opportunity to change we were taught in those days that the sole idea of the anc as a liberation movement was to just sweep all of properly thinking like-minded white people into the sea and take over the country and i you know as it turns out i couldn't have been more wrong come 1994 when we now have a new president who insisted by the way that he's his staff and even his protection team must reflect the demographic of all of south africa it was very very difficult it was difficult for us because we were the cops that used to protect the previously or white government leaders and we are by a dint of our constitution required to protect our head of state now we've got a new head of state who comes with his own security detail quite rightly i mean they're not they're never going to hand their president over to a bunch of white guys who were previously their enemies i don't think it was going to be a perfect relationship from the outset because of our historical backgrounds the different worlds where we're coming from the culture where we're coming from as we can understand you know security is about trust believing in each other you know that will cover each other's back but for us it was difficult because some of these guys that we we we're supposed to work with they're actually the ones who were arresting us who were you know supporting the the brutal system of apartheid and we're asking ourselves how do we work with these guys do we trust them that guy who was formerly my enemy as a security branch cop i was hunting those guys who we considered to be terrorists and they're now my colleagues the only way that i can learn to trust him as my colleague is to work with him to hurt with him it takes time trust or building trust takes time there's no shortcut to that we're here for a job we're not here to be friends we're here to make sure that we research our duties as professionals over a period of time the relationship you know obviously grow closer and closer to see them amalgamating and working together in the beginning was quite entertaining actually they used to to to group themselves in different offices and later on that of course they started socializing together even when they realized that we have to pull this off as a team you know there's no individuals here we had actually had two teams you know we'll have the main team and with the other team and madiba said to us he called the meeting to say look i want you to work with all south africans because i work with all south africans black and white [Applause] and it was difficult for us initially but we understood as individuals that we've got an obligation to build a nation and we needed to work with we had to work with other south africans [Music] headquartered in miami florida guardian protection works major festivals and concerts with their personal bodyguard service and venue security during massive festival weekends anton's bodyguards often find themselves at the same venues where guardians event security division is running points anton and his team had an action-packed memorial day weekend where their clients t payne dj khaled ace hood kerry hilson and more all had concerts first thing i want to do is cover best for the best that's the big event it's two days this year it's you know every time every year it's one it's every sunday but now they're doing it sunday and saturday saturday's gonna be hip-hop uh hip-hop mostly and then uh sunday's gonna be more um caribbean crowd so expect a bigger crowd saturday expect a rougher crowd saturday um expect more [ __ ] saturday but uh sunday you guys already know how the caribbean crowds are you respect them they respect you the only time you're gonna have is weed that's about it no one's really gonna fight um you know knock on wood but i mean the big concern i have is for saturday um we got some new guys on the crew that me and josh interviewed i want to test the guy out this is also frank's new you know one-time venture leaving the nest we got to see how he's doing this is your first time being requested which is awesome ace is performing at best of the best if it was any other artist i wouldn't really worry about it but i've seen this guy perform he's a stick of dynamite you're gonna try for being white you're gonna get tried for being a bodyguard gonna get tried for trying to tell anyone to do something they don't wanna do i know you got a temper you're gonna have to curb it you're gonna have to curb it fast you've got to be bodyguarding a principle and probably the worst week that you could ask for last time i bodyguarded with him there was eight of us out there so it's a lot easier but now he's the number one guy he's solely responsible for his client protection everything good that happens is because of him everything bad that happens is because of him we'll see how he does [Music] i hired guards that go through the [ __ ] of getting yelled at in the face by some guy that you know you'll squash but you just gotta eat it are your feelings gonna get hurt no absolutely not we're looking to throw you in a fire tonight [Music] what [Music] oh oh back up he's a little cluttered again with a caribbean crowd and with a hip-hop crowd the stages are always cluttered they do an okay job but it's never clean you're never gonna walk into a clean stage this is gonna be where it's gonna happen we're gonna see an issue happen here people with vip bands should not be going backstage everybody's somebody especially miami especially in the caribbean crowd of the hip-hop crowd real simple you don't have a bracelet you're not in it's chaos and we're here to organize the chaos now i gotta deal with [ __ ] like this what are you talking about the same thing the last 20 people been talking about because it abrasive [ __ ] up [Applause] so that covers best of the best man like i said cold blues are gonna be the number one thing and braces are you know people trying to escort people in without braces are gonna be the number two man you gotta go downstairs [Music] away from being fired nine years as a pro football player and a head of security for carrie hillson i've been with her for now two years so we have a relationship sometimes she tells me she said harvard i think she's a little rough with that fan at the end of the day you got to your show safe you got on stage safe and went back to your hotel safe i did my job [Music] mikey has flourished as bieber's director of security because he's been able to keep justin safe while simultaneously dealing with a variety of logistical executions that ensured team bieber runs smoothly we joined mikey and justin for an inside look at the day-to-day workings of a world tour we were able to take them off to the underground so nobody the crowd doesn't even notice like if you see them right now they're still standing there thinking that like he's still here cars are there buster there so like all the hype is here he goes underground on to the other side i'm on a group chat right now with five six people coordinating where they are chiropractor yeah so he could ask him at any time so then if you ask where's the car what's this so everybody has to be together at one hurry up and wait don't forget to take your belongings that you'll need for him like masseuse or table the trainer his protein and he said um he wants cairo and the masseuse to meet him at the venue so it's like all right that's what i'm already working on before he even asked i'm already setting it up because it's like you're you already know i already know what you're going to ask that's the three and a half years ago yeah yeah yeah he's like yeah he's gonna want this this and that and then get a text hey he wants this this and that oh okay already got it fast enough and we do too like sometimes like if like if it's one of us getting out you know we're gonna go to the gym or something paparazzi even too we'll stop open the doors and be like look he's not here check all right stop following thank you this is not george clooney it's not so-and-so um you got young girls between a certain age and hardcore loyal so guys oh yeah yeah that's been on the trend too a lot of guys you can see yeah so this is right now it's kind of since he's already there um it's just basically they'll walk through what the location of everything anywhere from dressing room to catering eventually immediately where it's going to take place how they got that organized kind of make sure it works with you know again control um just get to know the venue a little bit see where our car is going to be staged at with where the bus is going to be okay so excellent nobody threw the back of this and nobody threw this side where you go where you have them coming in from where you have them coming in from okay so they're gonna wait over there behind like all the people coming in yeah yeah the opposite side that's what we're coming into the back so they won't see him gotcha okay here we'll move this i mean you'll be set already okay the first 20 people can tell you that after that you know everybody has to have their opponents okay do you have a head account do you have an account many people for today oh that's not bad that we didn't want 250 in seattle [Music] [Applause] [Music] no [Music] [Music] my mother she's all this woman in kazakhstan she's forty-two [Music] hey [Music] shamir and tyrone run their invite only training program out of an abandoned prison in the middle of [ __ ] nowhere florida the program consists of anyone from your modern day celebrity bodyguard to special forces operatives from across the globe phase one shooting range warm-up you want to pop your cherry you know the guns have been in the case for you know a couple of couple days couple weeks depending on how much you shoot you want to pop your chair you want to zero your weapon you know basically make sure your scopes your sights are in line just basically get that first couple off you know it's kind of like when you're a virgin you know you might not get out the park the first time but once you feel that moist tender sweetness you're gonna remember it for the second time you're gonna be better prepared shoot us ready target pretty much want to make sure that your scope or your sights are on track we do it from 25 yards or 36 yards after that you know we go to some basic drills some a couple rounds to the chest a couple rounds to the head so you do your two wrong two as soon as you grab that pistol your support hand comes off the rifle [Music] phase two principal transportation venue arrival and extract and what that entails is we have a three vehicle caravan the first vehicle being a lead vehicle second vehicle being the vehicle that occupies the principal and when i use the term principle the principles can relate to the person that we are actually hired to protect all angles are going to be covered by somebody right whenever everybody gives the okay everything is clear the agent is gonna get out phase three the shoot house [Music] about the shoot house we you know obviously in the military terms it's called mouth military operations in urban terrain before you go into the building it's got to be clear obviously if you're doing a two-man room clearing the guy who's going on the lead he's always going to have his rifle pointing up of that after that has been clear you either go inside nothing's clear you come out of the room [Music] even if it's got body armor the party going to be right about here so run right here he's going to be pretty much done it's going to go right here through the neck right on the bottom part of the neck it's going to come out to the back incapacitate around immediately the reason why we train so much is because sometimes you're gonna present your weapon you're literally gonna have your finger on the trigger and right before you press that trigger you're going to say this is not a threat you go into situations where a lot of times you're not gonna know and you have to make the call literally in one second or less than one second anywhere you see a target on the wall engage it two rounds hold what you see all the way right left or we i don't want to go too much into the tactics because it's being used by our guys overseas you know you know it's just one of those things that if you're not in the business it's best not to know the hubs were coming up to here is uh 799 east 3rd street this is the house we used to call it the haunty this is where we killed three people inside uh [ __ ] barrett john mcintyre and deborah hussey she was the last one and they were all buried downstairs in the basement there was a dirt floor down there bucky barrett by by many accounts very nice guy he was a very good safe cracker and he had pulled off a heist at a bank that got away with a lot of stuff a lot of money some of it belonging to the mafia and jewelry bulger found out about it so a plan was made to shake him now and bucky was going to come and meet this jewelry dealer if you want to feel like a better word a guy that was stealing hard diamonds and everything for sale and when bucky walked in the house to meet him that was me and i shook his hand i grabbed him and why he stepped out with the machine gun and basically he was taken hostage they'd gotten a lot of money out of bucky barrett but bulger decided that he was gonna kill him and it was all supposed to be a shakedom to let him go but uh whitey decided to kill him and so bucky was killed that was the basement where where whitey stevie kevin and pat knee became diggers they dug holes in the basement they put a body in this case was bucky barrett covered it up and they put two more bodies there after they put bucky barrett there and then you had the case of john mcintyre who was involved with the valhalla it was a ship that went over ireland with seven tons of weapons on it but he didn't realize that he was dealing with dangerous people and he got grabbed coming off the boat while holla when it docked customers agents grabbed him and shortly there afterwards he started cooperating with quincy police and we found out about it and he was killed and then he had deborah hussey that was stevie flemmi's stepdaughter she was killed because stevie was having sexual relations with the uh you know she knew too much of stevie's business just she was an embarrassment to him and so jim bulge decided and stevie fleming decided to kill her and she came in the same house and she was killed and they were all buried in the cellar the final note in that is that after whitey had after after whitey had strangled her they detected that she might still be alive and so her stepfather with a piece of rope and a stick garrett at her [Music] a guy who was a secret fbi informant who was protected by fbi agents jim's normal routine was after he killed someone as he would go upstairs and lay down and take a nap i mean it was like a aphrodisiac farmer taking a valium he was just nice and relaxed and for the next couple of weeks he was nice and relaxed it was just like a stress relief and then you could see it build up in him again but killing people relaxed him [Music] later on the house was being sold and we had to go back down and exhume all the bodies it wasn't nice it was uh you know one body was only in there for six months and so the smell was pretty bad we took them out dug them up at night time and put them in body bags and transported them over to this other uh place that we had over at hallett street this was a spot that we picked out it was real convenient it was maybe about two miles from where the house was and it was all brush here and scrub and trees and stuff so it was a perfect spot and we threw the bodies in there and covered it over with the dirt from the duffel bags over here somewhere is uh basically where i was lying uh i gotta look at the doorway at the angle to find out the exact spot but i was probably lying right around here and at one point i had a uh grease gun machine gun with a silencer on it and i had the police scanner in my ear and uh we're listening to calls and stuff and whitey and stevie walked over there actually crawled over there where the bodies were and he wanted to check it out so while i was here on watch this kid pulled up and he got out of the car and he started to relieve himself of course platform well we were really quiet we just all just froze on the ground just waiting and he got back in the car and he left jim bulger came over to me afterwards and he was upset he said i let him get too close he says there was plenty of room in the hole that we could put him in there so i guess the kid was lucky that it was me that night at that time instead of whitey because weddi would have killed him right away eventually the police came here and they exhumed the bodies hold up to be clear the only reason the cops knew where the bodies were was because kevin exposed them more than a decade later after finding out why he was an informant more on this later they found three parties here and two bodies over in the planted and one body over 10am beach and uh you know a lot of people got killed back then and a lot of bodies got buried and you know back then if there was no body there was no crime and that's the reason they were buried but i do know from the investigators that flemi and bulger were concerned that kevin didn't have it in him to kill people to me that's that's that that's a positive to be sure well i think the evidence at trial and the evidence that we were able to uncover through other witnesses did in fact corroborate weeks in that he was basically an accessory to a lot of these murders he wasn't the actual shooter or killer but he was there and he was part of it he was a lookout on some of them he witnessed others he helped rebury bodies so he certainly had a serious role in some horrific crimes [Music] it's no secret that the bodyguard business is a male-dominated industry that being said there are a ton of smart tough-as-nails women who are extremely successful in the field of personal protection our story takes us to london england where we meet seasoned professional jackie davis and her team of all female bodyguards in addition to hostage rescues in the middle east jackie's experience includes protecting jk rowling and saudi royalty jackie's team shows us exactly what it takes to get a client in and out of the venue safely starting with advanced security before the principal arrives so advanced work is all about pre-preparation and planning before you bring your principal to a venue you have to look at the choke points that could be on the road you need to know the entrance and exits where you can have a smooth entrance or exit for your principal it's all about being aware of what is around the venue it's all about being able to get your principal in and out safely and to look for areas where a possible attacker might look [Music] so once we enter the venue the first thing we want to do is find the venue manager because he has the local knowledge of what happens in his venue so we're going to introduce ourselves and ask for his co-operation once we're inside we're looking at things like windows material that's on walls in case it's offensive because some of our clients are from the middle east and they would find half naked men and women pictures on the walls offensive the gambling machines would have to be switched off if they were the clients coming what we're looking for in this venue is somewhere for our principal to have a quiet meeting away from a window but with the facilities quite close to her here would be a good place we could then cover the entrance and exits into this place including the kitchen door so that nobody will be able to get to our principal okay so we're going to check the toilets check there's nobody in the stores we're also going to check at the back to make sure there's no weapons or explosives have been hidden in any of the fossils this window here looks like it's broken we'll have to deal with that we'd either have to close that or i'll have to put somebody outside there but the place is clean perfectly acceptable for the principal to come in here and use these facilities providing there is nobody else in here so we want to check all the entrance and exits to make sure that we can get our principal in or out in an emergency smoothly and also to check um if the bad guys can get in or out behind us so we're going to go out this entrance here it brings us straight out into a smoking area so we probably wouldn't use this for our principle if they don't smoke because they may find the smell quite offensive we're coming around um into a wide open car parking area which is quite good because uh not a lot of places for people to hide but we have to be aware of the buildings that are over the road and i can see that that's a garage so therefore we'd be very careful we can cover off the road up there we can cover off the road down there so our principal can have a smooth drive away [Music] so we have a female operative over here who's covering the kitchen door that's to make sure that nobody who should be coming through there comes through there and she's also covering this back bar area the operator over here she's covering the entrance and the toilet so again we can be aware of who's coming in and out we have another operator who's covering the window so she can see what's going on outside and then our other operator is round here she's covering she's sitting at the bar looking like she belongs here but she's actually covering the other entrances and exits so that nobody that should come near the principal gets near the principal the venue has now been compromised and we have to get the principal out the back up female will come up behind the front females will go out ahead to make sure it's clear for her to go straight out and into the vehicle [Music] um [Music] absolutely i was a racist and thought like a racist prior to 1994 and meeting president mandela i mean i'm one of those rare white south africans that will actually say yeah i did i did vote for the old national party under apartheid yeah absolutely i i was brought up thinking that that kind of racist behavior society context was normal so yeah i was a racist you know and i very quickly learned that that was that that was wrong and i learned it by watching president mandela change this country in elsa mandela's case we had an excellent example of a person that dealt with everyone around him irrespective of the color of their skin their wealthy status their position he dealt with people with the utmost of respect you have no choice but to change and to follow that kind of example and because he was one with of dignity and love and caring and respecting people it's not easy to undo 33 or 34 years whatever it was of of conditioning under a particular political system i mean when you're 33 you're pretty much who you are but as a 33 year old i started to think hang on a minute i've been wrong and everything i've been taught and told and brought up with was wrong so i very easily and very quickly bought into madiba's concept of this new south africa i bought into it entirely because i saw it firsthand when you work with someone for for a long time it's it's only natural that there's more of a relationship developing a father a son relationship i served him in a very specific capacity i respected him and i loved him dearly but to call him a friend no it's a bit too it's a bit too familiar he was my president and he was my protectee and i loved him like my own grandfather but it stopped there nelson mandela was like a father to us [Applause] [Music] and that relationship must not cloud your judgment as a professional i knew unquestionably that i was willing if called upon to do so to sacrifice my own life to protect that of president nelson mandela i would have died for my diaper because what i was trained for i was a bullet catcher i was a professional besides that i was looking after one of them the icons of the world who would want to die for him on december the 5th 2013 the heart of south africa stopped beating at 95 years of age nelson mandela passed away how did madiba's death affect me and was it a time to reflect it was it's a very strange thing because our entire nation and for that matter the entire world you know we're kind of very conscious of the fact that we we had madiba with us kind of on borrowed time everybody knew how ill he was and he was getting older and frailer you know that one day our day will come never thought that something like that will happen to my team even though we were expecting this announcement at some time it was still a tremendous shock when it came but it didn't take long and i'm talking about a matter of hours during that morning somewhere along the line our grief turned to celebrating what was an exceptional life this was a day to mourn one life lost and a day to mark the many lives made by nelson mandela as much as you expect something like that to happen you're never ready for it therefore when mr mandela passed away you know people were genuinely feeling the grief even if they've never met him they personally felt affected it was the person that we all look up to the person and that had no resentment despite what he went through he was a much better person than any of us we as the former protection team were given an extraordinary honor and we were called up all of us were invited to that ceremony in the aircraft hangar and we were called up ten at a time to stand five on either side of that of that casket draped in the national flag while the ceremonies proceeded around us and we were just given maybe two or three minutes with our own private thoughts and memories standing alongside his coffin it was just one of those seminal moments in in my life madiba for us is an icon he's the father of all the nation was able to bring us together as a country [Music] very emotional very emotional it gave me the closure that i kind of didn't fully have at the time now all i've got are all my memories filed away here in the back of my mind it was a great five years because i'm about emotionally drained as i can be i think we probably [Music] having a girlfriend was very difficult couldn't have one you wouldn't you wouldn't touch a woman for a long time the way i did it you wouldn't drink i never smoked but you wouldn't party you wouldn't take a night off you wouldn't do anything you were i was a robot for so long that i said okay this is the way you need to be the number one thing you sacrifice that is the most valuable thing is time right you can't get it back i love being able to protect and being able to be a part of something and make money doing it it's what i'm here to do but then time goes and then you start realizing that what am i doing all this for you know now you're 37 38 and you're thinking to yourself when's the last time i celebrated christmas you know when's the last time thanksgiving dinner you know was the last time i had a girlfriend that i could hold on to you miss all that it's a sacrifice you do because if you totally stop doing all these holidays then you'll realize you're missing it but you don't realize you're missing it because you're still doing these holidays but you're doing their holiday i'm at bieber's driveway for christmas there's snow on the ground there's christmas colors everywhere i know it's christmas there's presents here and there so it's not like i missed christmas it was there for christmas but not my christmas so i think time is a big thing that you sacrifice and you know being a celebrity bodyguard people that call themselves celebrity bodyguards are [ __ ] because you're a bodyguard your client is a celebrity that's one thing or another don't call yourself a celebrity bodyguard because now you're giving a glamorous name to it this by no means is a glamorous industry there's no glamour to this [ __ ] and that's my biggest regret if i could do it all over again what i have not done it maybe maybe not you know i got buddies of mine that that don't have much money and they got beautiful families and they got kids and they got a wife and you got this and then and but they're driving up a beat up minivan and you know what they're 10 times happier than i am you know because they've got to experience that so that's that to me is the number one sacrifice is is time you look back at my entire career and what i've done i've got a lot of memories i've got a lot of memories i've seen it all i've been i've done it all but i can honestly genuinely say not one of those memories were mine at least i lived 50s life i went to his thanksgiving i went to little wayne's daughter's birthday that's what something with guardian what i do with these guys is i make them come home they don't want to come home you're coming home don't end up like me you know even the guys they see i don't want to end up like dancing and uh you know i realized that about a year or two ago and it broke my heart if you're doing it because you you want girls or because you want money then you're doing it for the wrong reasons don't do it don't do it if you're okay with not having any memories of your own for the next five or 10 or 15 years and you're okay with living someone else's life then this is something you could look into you're going to go days without eating you know days without sleeping days are not [ __ ] you're going to go months without touching a woman's arm maybe a year even more if you do it the right way there's a lot of bodyguards in this industry that do it the wrong way and they eat like kings and they [ __ ] a different groupie every night but those guys are short-lived but if somebody wants to come up to me and ask me right now what do you want i want to be bothered about what do i do i tell them go to school don't do this [ __ ] don't do this [Music] well back in 94 receiving information was a grand jury going on and people were getting called in and we basically getting from people on the street that were getting called in and we were getting from law enforcement so jim belgium steve for me during 94 basically i was just on a mini ram they come back for a week they take off for two weeks december 23rd 94 we got a tip off from john connolly that the indictments were imminent that they're going to try to round them all up over the holidays building next to it we're coming up to right now is the liquor store uh you know that's where john conley came and uh tipped me off about whitey bulger the indictment's coming down so he could take off and uh stevie fleming and the rest of them what he was doing i want to take off and the rest of them got pinched and they stayed and decided all right they'll take the hit to plead guilty whatever they might have done three four five years and they wouldn't have known about the killings the information about the killings came out because they took off everything began to unravel for kevin weeks after what he became a fugitive not only did he find out that his best friend and mentor had been an fbi informant for over a decade but he was also arrested and indicted on 29 charges when i was arrested i got arrested in 99 and it had been two years since they came out that whitey and stevie were in farmers for the fbi so it was a tough time realizing that you know your best friend was an informant when it came out that he was in fact an fbi informant that also helped us in terms of making a case because other people were now willing to cooperate against him once they found out he was an informant i was saying to myself well i'm going to do a live bit for these guys they've been ratting on everybody i mean i was brought up and preached to by them that you uh never ride on your fringe never ride on your enemies and if you get a problem you take it to the street then i realized that everything that was taught to me was a lie kevin was incensed to learn that bulger had been an informant he thought they were simply bribing conley and they were bribing cops yeah i mean you know i questioned you we had a relationship you know as far as uh we were paying for information and i knew about that and i knew he corrupted you know members of law enforcement and you know i doubt it until i started seeing the paperwork and i started reading about the information they were given and i knew it was accurate because people that were around us were arrested for these particular crimes so i knew the information was accurate and that they were informants broken by the betrayal of his best friend weeks decided to make a deal with the fbi kevin admitted to being an accomplice in five of whitey's murders leading the feds to the final burial site of the bodies from 799 east 3rd street some people make fun of kevin for how quickly he turned he's been called two weeks weeks because it didn't take him long to turn after he was charged they had nowhere to go it didn't take too many meetings before i realized that a that he was ready to flip so-called and not ready but wanted to had made made his decision probably before we met when i came back here to get sentenced i really had no uh expectations i was actually expecting the worst you know i always figured i'm gonna get 20 years i already had four and a half in and i figured that you know i had another 13 to do so that was the worst case scenario uh best case scenario was uh basically time served so i had no expectations i was prepared to go back and serve out whatever time i had left you know but when he told me uh judge said just a week 72 months said i hope i did the right thing and good luck i couldn't believe it you know the first thing i thought of was i got a second chance at life you know to make the most of it typically when a person cooperates they get a reduced sentence and weeks was no different he cooperated thoroughly and he testified and in return the judge gave him a sentence that is more lenient than he otherwise would have received after 16 years on the run 10 of which being on the fbi's top 10 most wanted list whitey bulger was finally captured he came back to boston to face his trial and the state's key witness his best friend kevin weeks it was a lousy feeling to look at the guy and you know the feelings i had for my like i said i still liked him but at the same time i was mad at him for betrayal it was a lousy feeling anyways you know it was a lousy feeling testifying period never mind against the guy that i considered my friend my view of it is that they they would have been at great risk probably in in proving and getting convictions in every case that kevin testified in if he hadn't been a witness he really he really made this whole thing work for the government and so the anger over that and of course self-interest led him to to a deal the deal was an awfully good one he said five years that's nothing that's right five years five murders he wasn't the person that was actually that killed anyone but he was part of that and could have been charged with felony murder i can't say we didn't harm innocent people because you know basically we prayed on other criminals and we extorted them shook them down uh people that were killed they have families that are innocent that extended families and it affected them you know the people that were around us the criminals that we've preyed upon i mean that was the chance they took okay that's what happens when you know you're involved in organized crime uh but as far as their families and you know children and loved ones aunts uncles all that we affected them we hurt them and uh you know it wasn't a good feeling when you think back at it of all the harm you caused people after another long day of bieber mania the energy has shifted inside the arena the venue has been secured all staff are in position the band and dancers are all warmed up and 20 000 streaming fans are ready for justin bieber before during and after the show mikey is justin's shadow even when justin can't see mikey he knows his bodyguard his friend will always have his back get up get out the drums get out the six get out the crowd then [Music] up [Music] uh dudes [Applause] jesus [Applause] [Applause] say jesus [Applause] quack [Applause] oh [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] protecting a client in 2014 shamir had to put his training to the test while coming face to face with active shooters every time i kiss my kids it might be the last time so i have to be perfect when i'm out there working that life working that career field takes a toll on you on this particular night um there were some veil threats that would be carried out you could be riding a bus and the music you literally won't hear a thing but what you will hear are the sounds of rifle rounds coming through steel and the windows and the furniture as it buzzing right through you i just uh just remember just seeing the curtains just floating in the interior of the cabin which just didn't seem right and i started seeing little shards and a little splintering you realize within this happens within like seconds your bus is under fire automatic fire automatic rifle fire and it's coming from both sides literally told him i said get the [ __ ] down everybody get in the back and everybody started running towards the back i know you're all type of [ __ ] it's like a rap video but it's real life so i have to discharge my weapon through a closed window at two vehicles simultaneously so i focused on the one shooter and it was after several rounds i was able to i stopped that threat um as soon as i noticed that that threat stopped the second shooting stopped um the shot stopped they ceased but when you talk about [ __ ] memorable experiences i'm here today right now we're entering the drone area uh which is a 360 degree field that's uh constructed from a berm and it allows us to shoot at all angles without having to worry about backdrops so right now the scenario is we're going to arrive at our destination i'm gonna let the principal out being derek the guy next to you and we're gonna walk to our vantage point and we're gonna meet an opposing threat unknown what the threat is we're gonna deal with it there's gonna be a live fire exercise [Music] [Music] [Music] so would you come with me [Music] appreciate reaching is [Music] without the kills people right now [Applause] so there you go an inside look at what it's like to protect the rich famous and powerful as told by elite bodyguards from across the globe always observing preparing protecting the ones in the watchtower [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Real Stories

Views: 184,210

Keywords: Kim Coates narration, Lil Wayne's bodyguard, Real Stories, Real Stories channel, VIP bodyguards, bodyguard documentary, bodyguard tactics, conflict resolution, crisis management, famous people protection, personal security, privacy safeguarding, private security industry, private security sector, professional bodyguards, risk management, security equipment, security training, threat detection, wealthy clients security, wealthy individuals

Id: aNK5p40WNFA

Length: 92min 16sec (5536 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 30 2021